Zenovii Krasivskyi

Zenovii Mykhailovych Krasivskyi (; 12 November 1929 – 20 September 1991), also spelled Zenovij Krasivskyj, was a Ukrainian poet, Soviet dissident, and human rights activist. He was a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and in the last year of his life the leader of the Banderite wing of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists within Ukraine.

Early life and first arrest Krasivskyi was born on 12 November 1929, in the village of Witwica, in the Stanisławów Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic (now Vytvytsia in Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast). His family supported the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, and his older brothers were members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This influenced his worldview and attitudes towards Ukrainian nationalism.

Krasivskyi's family was deported to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic by the Soviet government in 1947 or 1948. Rather than following them, Zenovii fled to the Carpathian Mountains, where he lived illegally until he was badly injured, upon which he moved to Lviv. In 1949 he was arrested, and tried by the NKVD. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment in Arkhangelsk Oblast and forbidden from ever returning to Ukraine.

Amnesty Krasivskyi was released as part of the amnesty of 1953, and allowed to visit his family in Karaganda. There, he worked as a miner, and partook in the opening of Ukrainian-language schools and book stores in the city.

Krasivskyi first married music teacher Stefania Yurovych in 1960 and had his first son, Yaroslav, the same year. During this time, he may have met and interacted with Viacheslav Chornovil, who was then an employee at Lviv Television (now Suspilne Lviv), as part of his studies. Chornovil would go on to emerge as the leader of Ukraine's dissidents. Krasivskyi moved to Morshyn in 1963. He had a second son, Myroslav, the next year, and later divorced Yurovych.

Release, third arrest, and later career After being released Krasivskyi married fellow dissident Olena Antoniv, whom he had met in 1974 during his time in Smolensk. Taras Chornovil, Antoniv's son from her first marriage with Viacheslav Chornovil, supported the marriage, and it was permitted by the KGB despite laws barring individuals diagnosed as mentally ill from being married. He joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1979, and devoted himself to the revival of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Krasivskyi also became leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1990,